Ghost Trees

And it's Silvester´which needs this song.  And probably this cat.  But definitely needs Sekt and friends.  We have both for tonight.  And very probably this German New Year Classic too.

It is the time of year when people here In Germany wish each other "einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr".  If you translated that 1:1 into English you'd get "a good slide into the New Year".  Which, sadly, makes no sense whatsoever.  Although if it's icy then you could somewhat tenuously claim it DOES make sense - but then I'd have to box your ears ("Is that what they do on Boxing Day?" "No, that's another story altogether, now pay attention.")

Now we* have a few theories about where this actually comes from.

The first says it comes from Yiddish.  Yiddish is an amalgam of German, Aramaic and Hebrew.  The Jewish New Year is Rosh Hashanah or the start of the Jewish Civil year and means "beginning of the year". And so the theory goes that it went from wishing people "einen guten Rosh" or a good beginning to the New Year to "einen guten Rutsch".

Sounds plausible.

However.

There is little historical evidence to back this up.  For a start, the Jewish New Year starts at the end of September/beginning of October and the Christian New Year is called shanah khadashah in Hebrew.

And there (apparently) is no mention of it in the Brothers Grimm Dictionary or the 1876 German Dictionary by Daniel Sanders.

The somewhat more prosaic explanation is that was popularised from a quote from Goethe "Sonntag rutscht man auf das Land" "On Sundays we travel to the countryside".

The shift from space to time may have happened at the beginning of the 20th century, when "guten Rutsch" shows up as a greeting on picture postcards which had become popular at that time.

In summary, I don't know exactly where it comes from.  But I hope you found the ideas somewhat diverting.

With that I wish you all einen Guten Rutsch - I hope that 2017 is the best year of your lives so far.

*Assorted stuff I found out from things I've read in actual books and on the internet.  I discounted the idea that it was invented by Coca Cola and/or Donald Trump family way back when.